Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication systems; and, more particularly, to communications between communication devices within single user, multiple user, multiple access, and/or multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communications.
Description of Related Art
Communication systems support wireless and wire lined communications between wireless and/or wire lined communication devices. The systems can range from national and/or international cellular telephone systems, to the Internet, to point-to-point in-home wireless networks and can operate in accordance with one or more communication standards. For example, wireless communication systems may operate in accordance with one or more standards including, but not limited to, IEEE 802.11x (where x may be various extensions such as a, b, n, g, etc.), Bluetooth, advanced mobile phone services (AMPS), digital AMPS, global system for mobile communications (GSM), etc., and/or variations thereof.
In some instances, wireless communication is made between a transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) using single-input-single-output (SISO) communication. Another type of wireless communication is single-input-multiple-output (SIMO) in which a single TX processes data into RF signals that are transmitted to a RX that includes two or more antennae and two or more RX paths.
Yet an alternative type of wireless communication is multiple-input-single-output (MISO) in which a TX includes two or more transmission paths that each respectively converts a corresponding portion of baseband signals into RF signals, which are transmitted via corresponding antennae to a RX. Another type of wireless communication is multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) in which a TX and RX each respectively includes multiple paths such that a TX parallel processes data using a spatial and time encoding function to produce two or more streams of data and a RX receives the multiple RF signals via multiple RX paths that recapture the streams of data utilizing a spatial and time decoding function.
Significant progress has been made over the years in communication systems including wireless communication systems. However, conventional technologies fail to meet the seemingly ever-increasing expectations of increased ever-increasing number of concurrently operational devices and ever-increasing increased amounts of information to be transmitted between devices. When communications of different formats are made between multiple different devices, a significant amount of control-based signaling is also required between those devices so that transmitted information may be properly received and processed. Increasing the amount of control-based signaling among devices to ensure they may operate correctly and appropriately process information transmitted between them competes with the already limited available resources within the communication system. The present state of the art includes much room for improvement in terms of increasing the overall data throughput among many different devices within a communication system.